Indigenous languages · in preparation

Dakȟótiyapi — the Dakota Language

The d-dialect of the Seven Council Fires — a language with a complete Bible since 1887, whose first-language speakers can now be counted in single digits in its own homeland.

In preparation — in partnership with the Dakota nations' own speakers. The goal is the whole collection in Dakȟótiyapi: every book to read and to hear, here and in the school. Nothing is published until they have guided and reviewed it.

The language

Dakȟótiyapi is the Dakota language — the d-dialect of the Dakota–Lakota–Nakoda continuum, spoken by the Santee-Sisseton and Yankton-Yanktonai peoples within the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, the Seven Council Fires. Its homeland is Mni Sota — Minnesota — and the northern plains around it. After the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862, the Dakota were exiled from Minnesota en masse, and thousands fled north; their descendants' nations stand today in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and in 2024 Canada formally apologized to the Dakota and Lakota Nations for excluding them from the treaties of their own homelands.

Dakota carries the first written standard in its whole family of languages, worked out in 1834–39, and in 1887 a complete Dakota Bible was printed in it — among the earliest complete Bibles in any Indigenous North American language. Today fluent speakers number roughly 300, and first-language speakers born and raised in the Minnesota communities number about five; there are now more second-language learners than first-language speakers. Modern spellings differ from the old books, and which convention a text follows is each community's own decision.

Their own teachers

Sisseton Wahpeton College makes Dakota its institutional mission, with a Dakota Studies degree and a Language Teaching Certificate whose graduates are certified to teach. Cankdeska Cikana Community College at Spirit Lake teaches a four-semester Dakota sequence. Dakota Wicoh'an grows new fluent speakers across Minnesota's Dakota communities. And a Dakota dictionary app was built from the voices of seven first-language speakers — including elders of Whitecap Dakota First Nation in Saskatchewan and Birdtail Sioux First Nation in Manitoba, so the Canadian nations are inside the language's flagship learning tool from the start.

Learn Dakȟótiyapi in writing

This room opens first for learning to read and write — and it begins with an honest statement: the Dakota have not settled one spelling for everyone, and no outsider will settle it for them. What stands here is the map of the standards in use, and the doors to the Dakota's own teachers.

The writing

The mission orthography (1834–39)

The first written standard of the whole language family, worked out with Dakota speakers in the 1830s and carried in Stephen Riggs's dictionary and grammar. It is the spelling of the complete Dakota Bible of 1887, and elders and churches still read it. Sisseton Wahpeton College's Dakota Studies program reads the historical texts in it.

Today's community spellings

Modern Dakota materials mark sounds the mission spelling merged — the checked and fricative consonants written with marks such as ȟ, ğ, š, ž — and spell the nasal vowel with an underlined or hooked n (ƞ, ŋ). The Dakhóta Iápi Okhódakičhiye's textbooks and its dictionary app, built from seven first-language speakers, and Dakota Wicoh'an's curriculum carry these conventions. Which convention a text follows is each oyate's and community's own decision; this programme takes no side.

Practice

No single practice sheet stands here, because there is no one Dakota spelling for an outsider to hand out. Practice belongs with each community's own materials, through the doors above.

Learn from their own teachers

Dakota Wicoh'an — programs — the Dakota-led revitalization organization in Minnesota — family language classes (Tiwahe), curriculum and teacher training, and online practice for learners and educators
Sisseton Wahpeton College — course catalog (PDF) — the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate's own college — its Dakota Language Teaching certificate (34 credits) prepares certified Dakota language instructors

The writing is the people's own gift to their learners. The words of the books wait for the partnership.

Hear Dakȟótiyapi today

These voices are the Dakota people's own, published by their own teachers and stations. The link takes you to their house; nothing of their voice is copied here.

Dakhóta Iápi Wičhóie Wówapi — the Dakota Dictionary app — Dakhóta Iápi Okhódakičhiye's talking dictionary: 28,000 words and nearly 40,000 spoken clips recorded with seven first-language speakers
Dakota Audio Journal — DIO — fluent speakers and elders talking about their lives and sharing songs, from Dakhóta Iápi Okhódakičhiye's own catalogue
The Dakota Dictionary app — how it was made — The Language Conservancy on the recording of the app with the speakers themselves

Dakota’s public bench is small and precious — these doors are its strong ones. The first-language speakers who recorded them are few, and every clip is theirs.

An open invitation

This door stands open by invitation. If you are a speaker, teacher, or language keeper of Dakȟótiyapi, or you carry its authority, this programme asks to work with you — to be guided, corrected, and reviewed by the people whose language this is. In this collection the holy names are never invented: what the Creator is called in a language is for its own speakers to give, and the spelling of every text is theirs to settle. Write to the publisher at [email protected].

There is no single Dakota-wide language office. Authority sits with each Dakota nation's own government, education department, and language keepers — in the United States and Canada alike — and each will be approached for itself.

To hear it

When Dakȟótiyapi opens here, it will be heard as well as read — in its own voice, spoken and recorded by Dakota speakers. Until then this door is silent in Dakota on purpose: the first voice heard in it should be the people's own.

The other doors

This doorway carries no advertising.